


unless you show me how

by Spoofymcgee



Series: AU-gust 2020 [4]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: AND SWEET, Alternate Universe - Angels, Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Demons, Alternate Universe - Military, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angel Wings, Angel/Demon Relationship, But also, Domestic Bliss, Don't Have to Know Canon, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, He's so cute, M/M, Military Families, SO SAD, Supernatural Elements, a little shy, and he loves his brothers, and he's brave as heck, and sad, because i've made an executive decision that demon rex deserves popcorn, because they're technically all dead, but still alive!, i just, it's happy I promise, kind of?, popcorn exists, really love this rex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:55:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25804741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spoofymcgee/pseuds/Spoofymcgee
Summary: when obi-wan tries to introduce rex to his family, some of them get upset. rex manages to find a few friends anyway, along with some direction for the rest of his immortal existence.
Relationships: CC-1010 | Fox/Quinlan Vos, CT-7567 | Rex & Ahsoka Tano, CT-7567 | Rex & CT-5385 | Tup, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Quinlan Vos, Obi-Wan Kenobi/CT-7567 | Rex, Padmé Amidala & Ahsoka Tano, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Series: AU-gust 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1861135
Comments: 10
Kudos: 68





	unless you show me how

**Author's Note:**

> okay, let's start off with i love this 'verse and there is probably going to be more but i won't promise anything just yet.   
> it's a bit of a fusion between modern setting and regular star wars, with no jedi or sith.  
> not human ones anyway.  
> in which the jedi are angels, the sith are demon lords and the clones manage to exist anyway.
> 
> when you die, you're given a choice. become either an angel or a demon depending on how you've lived, or take your chances with the afterlife.  
> rex never had a choice.
> 
> riduur - husband/wife/spouse in mando'a

“Want some?” a voice asks from Rex's elbow. He turns, finding a young Togruta girl by his elbow, halo floating over her montrals and a gold-tipped white wing tucked on either side of her middle lek. She holds out a bowl of fluffy things. He takes a few warily, and puts one in his mouth. It’s been years since he’s had any of the vaguely remembered snack foods from Before. It tastes really good. She grins.   
“Popcorn.” She examines him head to toe, gaze catching on his long, barbed tail, lashing around his legs, tall, curved horns and scaled wings, both glinting blue in the sunlight. “Cool.” she says enviously. “You guys get all sorts of awesome colors, and we just get white and gold.” She extends one feathered appendage to show him. He grins at her shyly.   
“I’m Rex.” he says, offering a claw-tipped hand. She tosses a few more puffs in her mouths, then shakes it.   
“Ahsoka, and I know.” she replies, grinning. “You’re the only thing Obi-Wan’s been able to talk about for weeks. ‘He has the most beautiful blond curls.’ or ‘Ahsoka, his eyes are like two tiny halos.’ He did not, however, mention your more,” she gestures to him. “More demon-y aspects.”   
“I gathered.” Rex says dryly, and she laughs.   
“I like you.” she decides, tilting her head back, eyes closed, as the sun comes out from behind a cloud, drawing faint sparkles from the clouds surrounding them. “And Skyguy will too. He’s just a little put out that Obi scolded him for marrying Padme and then ended up dating a demon, especially one from Dooku’s army.”   
“Dooku’s old army!” he protests. “We deserted. And he’s married?”   
“Sometimes I can’t believe it either.” someone says behind them.    
“Padme!” Ahsoka cries, shoving the bowl at Rex and launching herself into the woman’s arms.    
“You’re Rex, right?” she asks over Ahsoka’s shoulder.    
“That’s me.” he agrees.    
“That’s my idiot husband.” she says, pointing to Anakin. Then, frowning: “My…  _ Riduur _ ?”   
“You know Mando’a?” He’s never met an angel who’s bothered to learn a demonic language before. She smiles.   
“I ascended, a couple of months ago. Before that, I was a junior partner in a law firm.” He frowns because most ascensions only happen after… He glances back at her. “There was an accident.” she says, and he winces, because there are far too many of those.   
“Drunk driver?” he asks and she nods.    
“I knew already; I’d been dating Ani for two years already and he’d told me the night before we got married. It happened about a week later, so there really wasn’t much of a choice.” Between living immortally as an invisible winged being and continuing on to some unknown afterlife, Rex isn’t sure what he’d choose. Luckily enough, he doesn’t have to. The count’s generals had reaped his soul from his half dead body in a hospital bed and brought him down to Hell. The memory of the night the entire army had revolted still brought a vicious smile to Rex’s face. He’d been one of the lucky command staff who got to overthrow Dooku himself and see the man’s face as all of his plans backfired at once.   
“So you learned a demonic language because you were a lawyer?” he asks before he can help himself.   
“No, I took it as an extra credit class to boost my GPA.” And Rex grimaces, because they stole him when he was nineteen and he never got to go to university. Except… Except he’s free now, isn’t he? He can do whatever he wants.   
“Thank you.” he says to Padme, and she gives him a confused smile. “Just, I never got to go to college.” She winces, and so does Ahsoka, who’s taken the bowl back from him and is listening intently. “No, no, just-I realized that I can, now, if I want to.” Padme nods. Then he frowns.   
“Wait,” Rex says slowly. “How could you see his wings?” She shrugs.   
“I don’t know. We never figured it out.”  “Wait, I have to know,” Ahsoka interrupts. “How did you meet? Obi-Wan won’t tell me.” Rex grins, wide and predatory.  “Oh, you’ll love the story.”

“-don’t see why they have to let lesser  _ demons _ in, honestly, shouldn’the horns be proof enough?” Tup’s lip wobbles.   
Rex’s hands nearly crack the wood as he slams them on the bar, standing and pushing his chair back with a loud shriek.   
“Excuse me, sir,” he says to the bartender, tail lashing angrily behind him, wings flared just enough to look menacing combined with his expression. “Would you mind reminding me of your policies on demons?” The angel quakes under his intricate tattoos.   
“Uh, well, er, r-ranks one through five are, erm, the s-same as all our other s-supernatural p-patrons, b-but above that is, uh, under s-supervisions.”  
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Rex barely has to raise his voice in order to be heard throughout the deadly silent bar. “But that’s ninety nine percent of those ranks are former soldiers in the Sith army.” The bartender nods, quivering violently. “And of those numbers, nearly all of them served unwillingly because the Sith illegally stole their souls and enslaved them. I know this is correct, because I number among them. I,” he says, claws digging into the scuffed and scratched wood. “Never asked to be kidnapped from that bed. I never wanted this and it isn’t right of you to judge any of the four million of us for who and what we are because we didn’t want it and  _ we can’t change it. _ ”   
Breathing heavily, he looks around, nods to the bartender, and sits. Tup grabs his hand and squeezes. Rex knocks shoulders with his brother, and takes a sip of his drink.

“That was an impressive speech.” someone says. Out of the corner of his eye, Rex can see a man slanted across the bar, halo floating high above his copper locks. “What are the chances you’ll allow me to buy you a drink?” Rex grins; there’s no mirth to it. He leans in close enough to give the other a clear observation of his sharp canines and the gilded yellow of his star pupiled eyes.  
“Not on your life, pretty boy.” he murmurs, and, pulling away, drains his glass and stands.  
“Well then, it’s a good thing I’m dead.” the angel says, suddenly behind him, breath hot against Rex’s neck. 

“I think Quinlan’s dating one of your brothers.” Obi-Wan says idly, combing long, elegant fingers through Rex’s short curls. He’s growing them out because Obi-Wan likes them and because he does too, and also because he can, now that he’s no longer in the military.  
They’re sitting on Rex’s bed in the new apartment he shares with Kix. He’s working on his first paper for his foreign language class, he’s in Obi-Wan’s lap as he combs through social media. “Mmm?” he hums questioningly, shifting.    
“There’s pictures.” Obi-Wan tells him, holding out his phone.   
There are.   
“That’s definitely Fox.” Rex confirms, scrolling through the sappy images. “I didn’t think Vos was his type.”    
His angel grins, far more dangerous than he has any right to be.   
“Quin was manning a kissing booth at a carnival, and Fox was security. Parents were complaining, so your  _ vod _ bribed him to pack up with a date.”   
“There’s no way Fox thought of that himself.” Rex replies idly. “He’s too repressed.”   
“It does seem like something Quin would do. And I haven’t fully trusted his perspective on situations since the waterfall when we were teenagers.” This has Rex interested. He has a few thousand brothers; at least a hundred of them are always crushing or pining or dating at any given moment. But Obi-Wan never talks about his past.   
“I knew him Before; I told you that, right?” he asks, resting his elbows on Rex’s head and steepling his fingers under his chin. “My foster father and his were friends; we’d go camping and hiking and fishing together. Lots of outdoors. One time, we were on a trip, and there was a waterfall; a fairly big one, probably around seventy feet or so. Quinlan decided he could do a handstand on the rocks at the edge of the cliff, in the middle of the water,” Rex winces. “Actually, he probably would have been fine if he hadn’t switched to only one hand. He slipped, fell off the waterfall, and I dived after him.”   
“Obi-Wan!”   
“He was my friend!” he exclaims raising both hands palms up in defense. “Besides, Qui-Gon came after us, and we were both fine.” For another few years, anyway. There’s silence for a few minutes.   
“You miss him.” Rex says. It’s a statement, not a question, but Obi-Wan nods anyway.   
“I do. Him and Feemor and Bant and Satine. I-” he glances downward, and looks slightly surprised when his gaze meet’s Rex’s instead of his own palms. “It’s hard.” he admits softly.    
“I know.” Rex says, reaching up to grab Obi-Wan’s hand. 

  
None of Rex’s brothers remember anything. They’re all perfectly molded clones, physical representations of their souls locked into the shape Sidious had forced on them. Cracking, shifting as the spells and magic deteriorated after his death but always, always present. thorn -tipped wings, twisting horns, barbed tails, clawed hands.   
Minds wiped, and of course the Sith-demon lord had kept no records. There was simply no point in looking.    
Rex had been imperfect, as had a handful of others. Flaws slight enough to slip by, they’d been permitted to pass.    
Not a single one of them remembered like he did, blurry faces, beeping machines, sweet-smelling bacta and farther back, bright lights, and crashing, and falling, the silky fur of a tooka curled around his ankles, soft, little hands running over his arms, snapshots and impressions.   
He couldn’t remember names, faces, locations. Nothing helpful.   
Like the rest of the soldiers, though, the three years he’d spent serving under the Sith were blurry. Everything before and after missions was clear as glass, but nothing of their assignments remained short of muscle memory. It was a blessing, one not bestowed on the army’s commanders and intelligence agents like Cody and Jesse, who could remember holding a blaster to an enemy’s head, halo burning into their arm, influencing humans in the ever raging war between good and evil, love and hate, pouring out sensitive information and knowing the exact number of deaths it would lead to.   
Rex had some things to be thankful for. He didn’t have to build himself up like some brothers; he remembered liking romcom holos and flying fast and the color blue. He recalled hating grass and meliroon snack cakes and itchy blankets. He remembered being Rex, and just maybe, that was enough. 

**Author's Note:**

> oof, so tell me what you thought please, cause i really love this fic.


End file.
